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Compact Computer 40
The Compact Computer 40 or CC-40 is a portable computer developed by Texas Instruments. It started development in 1981, and was released in March 1983 for US$249. The CC-40 has a single-line 31 character LCD display, weighs 600 grams (22 ounces), and is powered by an AC adapter or can operate for 200 hours on four AA batteries. Memory is not erased by turning the unit off; it can retain data for several months. The CC-40 lacks a way to store data more permanently. Software was only available on cartridge or by typing programs into its built-in BASIC interpreter. The BASIC interpreter is similar but not identical to that of the TI-99/4A. The CC-40 uses TI's TMS70C20 CPU, an 8-bit microprocessor that runs at 2.5 MHz. The system has 6 kilobytes of Random Access Memory (expandable to 18 KB),and 34 KB of Read Only Memory. Peripherals can be connected via a Hexbus port: an 80 column printer, printer/plotter, RS-232 interface, and modem. A licensed version of the Exatron Stringy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hexbus
The Texas Instruments Hex-Bus interface (sometimes used unhyphenated as Hex Bus and with varying capitalization) was designed in 1982 and intended for commercial release in late 1983. It connects the console to peripherals via a high-speed serial link. Though it was prototypical to today's USB (plug and play, hot-swappable, etc.), it was never released, with only a small number of prototypes appearing in the hands of collectors after TI pulled out of the market. Several Hex-Bus peripherals were planned or produced. A WaferTape drive never made it past the prototype stage due to reliability issues with the tapes. The 5.25-inch Floppy drive also never made it past the prototype stage, even though it worked. Prototype DSDD disk controllers and video controllers were also made. A 4-color Printer-Plotter, a 300-baud modem, RS-232 interface, an 80-column thermal/ink printer, and a 2.8" "Quick Disk" drive were the only peripherals released in quantity, mostly for use with the TI CC-40. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hex-Bus
The Texas Instruments Hex-Bus interface (sometimes used unhyphenated as Hex Bus and with varying capitalization) was designed in 1982 and intended for commercial release in late 1983. It connects the console to peripherals via a high-speed serial link. Though it was prototypical to today's USB (plug and play, hot-swappable, etc.), it was never released, with only a small number of prototypes appearing in the hands of collectors after TI pulled out of the market. Several Hex-Bus peripherals were planned or produced. A WaferTape drive never made it past the prototype stage due to reliability issues with the tapes. The 5.25-inch Floppy drive also never made it past the prototype stage, even though it worked. Prototype DSDD disk controllers and video controllers were also made. A 4-color Printer-Plotter, a 300-baud modem, RS-232 interface, an 80-column thermal/ink printer, and a 2.8" "Quick Disk" drive were the only peripherals released in quantity, mostly for use with the TI CC-40. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RS-232
In telecommunications, RS-232 or Recommended Standard 232 is a standard originally introduced in 1960 for serial communication transmission of data. It formally defines signals connecting between a ''DTE'' (''data terminal equipment'') such as a computer terminal, and a ''DCE'' (''data circuit-terminating equipment'' or ''data communication equipment''), such as a modem. The standard defines the electrical characteristics and timing of signals, the meaning of signals, and the physical size and pinout of connectors. The current version of the standard is ''TIA-232-F Interface Between Data Terminal Equipment and Data Circuit-Terminating Equipment Employing Serial Binary Data Interchange'', issued in 1997. The RS-232 standard had been commonly used in computer serial ports and is still widely used in industrial communication devices. A serial port complying with the RS-232 standard was once a standard feature of many types of computers. Personal computers used them for connection ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
TI-74
The Texas Instruments TI-74 Basicalc is a type of programmable calculator, which was released in 1985 to replace the Compact Computer 40. The TI-74's architecture is descended from the never-released TI CC-40 Plus. TI utilized the CC-40 Plus ROM to create the TI-74's BIOS; it removed the CC-40's internal debugger to gain enough space to add calculator mode to the TI-74. The CC-40 Plus' cassette routines were reused in the TI-74, and the CC-40's Hexbus port underwent a physical footprint change and was renamed to Dockbus. The Hexbus protocol is 100% compatible between the CC-40 and TI-74 with an adapter. One variant, the TI-74S, has a blank faceplate instead of secondary functions to allow for customization (otherwise it is the same as the 74). Both models accepted customized ROM-modules. The TI-95, released at the same time, was a keystroke programmable descendant of the TI-59 and TI-66, with the same general form factor, but a two-line display (the second line was for f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Compact Computer 70 Mock-up
Compact as used in politics may refer broadly to a pact or treaty; in more specific cases it may refer to: * Interstate compact * Blood compact, an ancient ritual of the Philippines * Compact government, a type of colonial rule utilized in British North America * Compact of Free Association whereby the sovereign states of the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the Republic of Palau have entered into as associated states with the United States. * Mayflower Compact, the first governing document of Plymouth Colony * United Nations Global Compact * Global Compact for Migration, a UN non-binding intergovernmental agreement Mathematics * Compact element, those elements of a partially ordered set that cannot be subsumed by a supremum of any directed set that does not already contain them * Compact operator, a linear operator that takes bounded subsets to relatively compact subsets, in functional analysis * Compact space, a topological space such tha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Creative Computing
''Creative Computing'' was one of the earliest magazines covering the microcomputer revolution. Published from October 1974 until December 1985, the magazine covered the spectrum of hobbyist/home/personal computing in a more accessible format than the rather technically oriented ''Byte (magazine), Byte''. The magazine was created to cover educational-related topics. Early issues include articles on the use of computers in the classroom, various simple programs like madlibs and various programming challenges, mostly in BASIC programming language, BASIC. By the late 1970s, it had moved towards more general coverage as the microcomputer market emerged. Hardware coverage became more common, but type-in programs remained common into the early 1980s. The company published several books, the most successful being ''BASIC Computer Games'', the first million-selling computer book. Their ''Best of Creative Computing'' collections were also popular. ''Creative Computing'' also published so ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BYTE
The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit of memory in many computer architectures. To disambiguate arbitrarily sized bytes from the common 8-bit definition, network protocol documents such as The Internet Protocol () refer to an 8-bit byte as an octet. Those bits in an octet are usually counted with numbering from 0 to 7 or 7 to 0 depending on the bit endianness. The first bit is number 0, making the eighth bit number 7. The size of the byte has historically been hardware-dependent and no definitive standards existed that mandated the size. Sizes from 1 to 48 bits have been used. The six-bit character code was an often-used implementation in early encoding systems, and computers using six-bit and nine-bit bytes were common in the 1960s. These systems often had memory words ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Exatron Stringy Floppy
An Exatron Stringy Floppy (cover removed) designed for use with the TRS-80 Model 1 The Exatron Stringy Floppy (or ESF) is a continuous-loop tape drive developed by Exatron. History The company introduced an S-100 stringy floppy drive at the 1978 West Coast Computer Faire, and a version for the Radio Shack TRS-80 in 1979. Exatron sold about 4,000 TRS-80 drives by August 1981 for $249.50 each, stating that it was "our best seller by far". The tape cartridge is about the size of a business card, but about thick. The magnetic tape inside the cartridge is wide. Format There is no single catalog of files; to load a specific file the drive searches the entire tape, briefly stopping to read the header of each found file. The tape loop only moves in one direction, so a file that starts behind the current location cannot be read until the drive searches the entire loop for it. The device is capable of reading and writing random access data files (unlike a datacassette). If a rec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that designs and manufactures semiconductors and various integrated circuits, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globally. It is one of the top 10 semiconductor companies worldwide based on sales volume. The company's focus is on developing analog chips and embedded processors, which account for more than 80% of its revenue. TI also produces TI digital light processing technology and education technology products including calculators, microcontrollers, and multi-core processors. The company holds 45,000 patents worldwide as of 2016. Texas Instruments emerged in 1951 after a reorganization of Geophysical Service Incorporated, a company founded in 1930 that manufactured equipment for use in the seismic industry, as well as defense electronics. TI produced the world's first commercial silicon transistor in 1954, and the same year designed and manufactured t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Portable Computer
A portable computer is a computer designed to be easily moved from one place to another and included a display and keyboard together, with a single plug, much like later desktop computers called '' all-in-ones'' (AIO), that integrate the system's internal components into the same case as the display. The first commercially sold portable might be the MCM/70, released 1974. The next major portables were the IBM 5100 (1975), Osborne's CP/M-based Osborne 1 (1981) and Compaq's , advertised as 100% IBM PC compatible Compaq Portable (1983). These luggable computers still required a continuous connection to an external power source; this limitation was later overcome by the laptop. Laptops were followed by lighter models, so that in the 2000s mobile devices and by 2007 smartphones made the term almost meaningless. The 2010s introduced wearable computers such as smartwatches. Portable computers, by their nature, are generally microcomputers. Larger portable computers were commo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
